In the meanwhile the musicians banged away at their tambourines. When they had finished, the leaders of the party with flowers in their buttonholes entered the room together with the town-clerk proudly carrying high on a pole the prizes prepared for the games, and followed by the dancers of the farandole and a crowd of girls.

The glasses were filled with the good wine of Alicante. All the cavaliers, each one in his turn, cut a slice of cake, and clicked glasses all round to the health of his Worship the Mayor. Then his Worship the Mayor, when all had drunk and joked for a while, addressed them thus:

“My children, dance as much as you like, amuse yourselves as much as you can, and be courteous to all strangers. You have my permission to do anything you like, except fight or throw stones.”

“Long live Monsieur Lassagne!” cried the young people. They went off and the farandole commenced. When we were alone again I inquired of my friend:

“How long is it that thou hast been Mayor of Gigognan?”

“Fifty years, my dear fellow.”

“Seriously? Fifty years?”

“Yes, yes, it is fifty years. I have seen eleven governments, my boy, and I do not intend to die, if the good God helps me, until I have buried another half-dozen.”

“But how hast thou managed to keep thy sash[12] amidst so much confusion and revolution?”

“Eh! my good friend, there is the asses’ bridge. The people, the honest folk, require to be led. But in order to lead them it is necessary to have the right method. Some say drive with the rein tight. Others, drive with the rein loose; but I—do you know what I say?—take them along gaily.”

“Look at the shepherds; the good shepherds are not those who have always a raised stick; neither are they those that lie down beneath a willow and sleep in the corner of the field. The good shepherd is he who walks quietly ahead of his flock and plays the pipes. The beasts who feel themselves free, and who are really so, browse with appetite on the pasture and the thistle. When they are satisfied and the hour comes to return home, the shepherd pipes the retreat and the contented flock follow him to the sheepfold. My friend, I do the same, I play on the pipes, and my flock follow.”

“Thou playest on the pipes; that is all very well.... But still, among thy flock thou hast some Whites, and some Reds, some headstrong and some queer ones, as there are everywhere! Now, when an election for a deputy takes place, for example, how dost thou manage?”

“How I manage? Eh, my good soul. I leave it alone. For to say to the Whites, ‘Vote for the Republic,’ would be to lose one’s breath and one’s Latin, and to say to the Reds, ‘Vote for Henri V.,’ would be as effectual as to spit on that wall.”

“But the undecided ones, those who have no opinion, the poor innocents, all the good people who tack cautiously as the wind blows?”

“Ah, those there, when sometimes in the barber’s shop they ask me my advice, ‘Hold,’ I say to them, ‘Bassaquin is no better than Bassacan.’ Whether you vote for Bassaquin or Bassacan this summer you will have fleas. For Gigognan it is better to have a good rain than all the promises of the candidates. Ah! it would be a different matter if you nominated one of the peasant class. But so long as you do not nominate peasants for deputies, as they do in Sweden and Denmark, you will not be represented. The lawyers, doctors, journalists, small shopkeepers of all sorts whom you return, ask but one thing: to stay in Paris as much as possible, raking in all they can, and milking the poor cow without troubling their heads about our Gigognan! But if, as I say, you delegated the peasants, they would think of saving, they would diminish the big salaries, they would never make war, they would increase the canals, they would abolish the duties, and hasten to settle affairs in order to return before the harvest. Just imagine that there are in France twenty million tillers of the soil, and they have not the sense to send three hundred of them to represent the land! What would they risk by trying it? It would be difficult for the peasants’ deputy to do worse than these others!”

And every one replies: “Ah! that Monsieur Lassagne! though he is joking, there is some sense in what he says.”

“But,” I said, “as to thee personally, thee Lassagne, how hast thou managed to keep thy popularity in Gigognan, and thy authority for fifty years?”

“Oh, that is easy enough,” he laughed. “Come, let us leave the table, and take a little turn. When we have made the tour of Gigognan two or three times, thou wilt know as much as I do.”

We rose from the table, lit our cigars and went out to see the fun. In the road outside a game of bowls was going on. One of the players in throwing his ball unintentionally struck the mark, replacing it by his own ball, and thus gaining two points.

“Clever rascal,” cried Monsieur Lassagne, “that is something like play. My compliments, Jean-Claude! I have seen many a game of bowls but on my life never a better shot!”

We passed on. After a little we met two young girls.

“Now look at that,” said Lassagne in a loud voice; “they are like two queens. What a pretty figure, what a lovely face! And those earrings of the last fashion! Those two are the flowers of Gigognan!”

The two girls turned their heads and smilingly greeted us. In crossing the square, we passed near an old man seated in front of his door.

“Well now, Master Quintrand,” said Monsieur Lassagne, “shall we enter the lists this year with the first or second class of wrestlers?”

“Ah! my poor sir, we shall wrestle with no one at all,” replied Master Quintrand.

“Do you remember Master Quintrand, the year when Meissonier, Guéquine, Rabasson, presented themselves on the meadow, the three best wrestlers of Provence, and you threw them on their shoulders, all three of them!”

“Eh, you don’t need to remind me,” said the old wrestler, lighting up. “It was the year when they took the citadel of Antwerp. The prize was a hundred crowns and a sheep for the second winner. The prefect of Avignon shook me by the hand! The people of Bédarride were ready to fight with those of Courtezon, on my account.... Ah! what a time, compared with the present! Now their wrestling will.... Better not speak of it, for one no longer sees men, not men, dear sir.... Besides, they have an understanding with each other.”

We shook hands with the old man and continued our walk.

“Come now,” I said to Lassagne, “I begin to understand—it is done with the soap ball!”

“I have not finished yet,” he made answer.

Just then the village priest came out of his presbytery.

“Good day, gentlemen!”

“Good day, Monsieur le Curé,” said Lassagne. “Ah, one moment, since we have met I want to tell you: this morning at Mass, I noticed that our church is becoming too small, especially on fête days. Do you think it would be a mistake to attempt enlarging it?”

“On that point, Monsieur le Maire, I am of your opinion—it is true that on feast days one can scarcely turn round.”

“Monsieur le Curé, I will see about it: at the first meeting of the Municipal Council I will put the question, and if the prefecture will come to our assistance——”

“Monsieur le Maire, I am delighted, and I can only thank you.”

As we left the ramparts, we saw coming a flock of sheep taking up all the road. Lassagne called to the shepherd.

“Just at the sound of thy bells, I said, ‘this must be Georges!’ And I was not mistaken: what a pretty flock! what fine sheep! But how well you manage to feed them! I am sure that, taking one with another, they are not worth less than ten crowns each!”

“That is true certainly,” replied Georges. “I bought them at the Cold Market this winter; nearly all had lambs, and they will give me a second lot I do believe.”

“Not only a second lot, but such beasts as those could give you twins!”

“May God hear you! Monsieur Lassagne!”

We had hardly finished talking to the shepherd when we overtook an old woman gathering chicory in the ditches.

“’Hold, it is thou, Bérengère,” said Lassagne, accosting her. “Now really from behind with thy red kerchief I took thee for Téréson, the daughter-in-law of Cacha, thou art exactly like her!”

“Me! Oh Monsieur Lassagne, but think of it! I am seventy years old!”

“Oh come, come, from behind if thou couldst see thyself, thou hast no need of pity. I have seen worse baskets at the vintage!”

“This Monsieur Lassagne, he must always have his joke,” said the old woman, shaking with laughter; and turning to me she added:

“Believe me, sir, it is not just a way of speaking, but this Monsieur Lassagne is the cream of men. He is friendly with all. He will chat, see you, with the smallest in the country even to the babies! That is why he has been fifty years Mayor of Gigognan, and will be to the end of his days.”

“Well, my friend,” said Lassagne to me, “It is not I, is it, that have said it! All of us like nice things, we like compliments, and we are all gratified by kind manners. Whether dealing with women, with kings, or with the people, he who would reign must please. And that is the secret of the Mayor of Gigognan.

(Almanach Provençal, 1883.)

CHAPTER XIV

JOURNEY TO LES SAINTES-MARIES

Our worthy charioteer, one of those typical Provenceaux whom nothing dismays, seated us on the shaft, our legs dangling. Half the time he walked by the side of his horse, the whip round his neck, constantly relighting his pipe. When he wanted a rest he sat on a small seat niched in between the wheels, which the drivers call “carrier of the weary.”

Just behind me, enveloped in her woollen wrap and stretched on a mattress by her mother’s side, her feet planted unconcernedly in my back, was a young girl named Alarde. Not having, however, as yet made the acquaintance of these near neighbours, Mathieu and I conversed with the driver, who at once inquired from whence we hailed. On our replying from Maillane, he remarked that he had already guessed by our speech that we had not travelled far.

“The Maillane drivers,” he added, “‘upset on a flat plain’; you know that saying?”

“Not all of them,” we laughed.

“’Tis but a jest,” he answered. “Why there was one I knew, a carter of Maillane, who was equipped, I give you my word, like Saint George himself—Ortolan, his name was.”

“Was that many years ago?” I asked.

“Aye, sirs, I am speaking of the good old days of the wheel, before those devourers with their railroads had come and ruined us all: the days when the fair of Beaucaire was in its splendour, and the first barge which arrived for the fair was awarded the finest sheep in the market, and the victorious bargeman used to hang the sheep-skin as a trophy on the main-mast. Those were the days in which the towing-horses were insufficient to tug up the Rhône the piles of merchandise which were sold at the fair of Beaucaire, and every man who drove a waggon, carriage, cart, or van was cracking his whip along the high roads from Marseilles to Paris, and from Paris to Lille, right away into Flanders. Ah, you are too young to remember that time.”

Once launched on his pet theme Lamoureux discoursed, as he tramped along, till the light of the moon waned and gave place to dawn. Even then the worthy charioteer would have continued his reminiscences had it not been that, as the rays of the awakening sun lit up the wide stretches of the great plains of the Camargue lying between the delta of the two Rhônes, we arrived at the Bridge of Forks.

In our eyes, even a more beautiful sight than the rising sun (we were both about five and twenty) was the awakening maiden who, as I have mentioned already, had been packed in just behind us with her mother. Shaking off the hood of her cloak, she emerged all smiling and fresh, like a goddess of youth. A dark red ribbon caught up her blonde hair which escaped from the white coif. With her delicate clear skin, curved lips half opened in a rapt smile, she looked like a flower shaking off the morning dew. We greeted her cordially, but Mademoiselle Alarde paid no attention to us. Turning to her mother she inquired anxiously:

“Mother, say—are we still far from the great saints?”

“My daughter, we are still, I should say, eighteen or twenty miles distant.”

“Will he be there, my betrothed?—say then—will he be there?” she asked her mother.

“Oh hush, my darling,” answered the mother quickly.

“Ah, how slowly the time goes,” sighed the young girl. Then discovering all at once that she was ravenously hungry, she suggested breakfast. Spreading a linen cloth on her knees, she and her mother thereupon brought out of a wicker basket a quantity of provisions—bread, sausage, dates, figs, oranges—and, without further ceremony, set to work. We wished them “good appetite,” whereupon the young girl very charmingly invited us to join them, which we did on condition that we contributed the contents of our knapsacks to the repast. Mathieu at once produced two bottles of good Nerthe wine, which, having uncorked, we poured into a cup and handed round to each of the party in turn, including the driver; so behold us a happy family.

At the first halt Mathieu and I got down to stretch our legs. We inquired of our friend Lamoureux who the young girl might be. He answered that hers was a sad story. One of the prettiest girls in Beaucaire, she had been jilted about three months ago by her betrothed, who had gone off to another girl, rich, but ugly as sin. The effect of this had been to send Alarde almost out of her mind; the beautiful girl was in fact not quite sane, declared Lamoureux, though to look at her one would never guess it. The poor mother, at her wits’ end to know what to do, was taking her child to Les Saintes-Maries to see if that would divert her mind and perhaps cure her.

We expressed our astonishment that any man could be such a scoundrel as to forsake a young girl so lovely and sweet-looking.

Arrived at the Jasses d’Albaron, we halted to let the horses have a feed from their nose-bags. The young girls of Beaucaire who were with us took this opportunity of surrounding Alarde, and singing a roundel in her honour:

But the result of this well-meant attention was very disastrous, for the poor Alarde burst out into hysterical laughter, crying, “My lover, my lover,” as though she were demented.

Soon after, however, we resumed our journey, for the sky, which since dawn had been flecked with clouds, became every moment more threatening. The wind blew straight from the sea, sweeping the black masses of cloud towards us till all the blue sky was obliterated. The frogs and toads croaked in the marshes, and our long procession of waggons struggled slowly through the vast salt plains of the Camargue. The earth felt the coming storm. Flights of wild ducks and teal passed with a warning cry over our heads. The women looked anxiously at the black sky. “We shall be in a nice plight if that storm takes us in the middle of the Camargue,” said they.

“Well, you must put your skirts over your heads,” laughed Lamoureux. “It is a known fact that such clouds bring rain.”

We passed a mounted bull-driver, his trident in his hand, collecting his scattered beasts. “You’ll get wet,” he prophesied cheerfully.

A drizzle commenced; then larger drops announced that the water was going to fall in good earnest. In no time the wide plain was converted into a watery waste. Seated beneath the awning of the waggon, we saw in the distance troops of the Camargue horses shaking their long manes and tails as they started off briskly for the rising grounds and the sandbanks.

Down came the rain! The road, drowned in the deluge, became impracticable. The wheels got clogged, the beasts were unable to drag us further. Far as the eye could reach there was nothing to be seen but one vast lake.

“All must get down!” cried the drivers unanimously. “Women and girls too, if you do not wish to sleep beneath the tamarisk-bush.”

“Walk in the water?” cried some in dismay.

“Walk barefoot, my dears,” answered Lamoureux; “thus you will earn the great pardon of which you all have need, for I know the sins of some of you are weighing devilish heavy.”

Old and young, women and girls, all got down, and with laughter and shrieks, every one began to prepare themselves for wading, taking off their shoes and tucking up their clothes. The drivers took the children astride on their shoulders, and Mathieu gallantly offered himself to the old lady in our waggon, the mother of the pretty Alarde:

“If you mount on my back,” he said, “I will undertake to carry you safely to the ‘Dead Goat.’” The old lady, who was so fat she walked with difficulty even on dry ground, did not refuse such a noble offer.

“You, my Frédéric, can charge yourself with Alarde,” said Mathieu with a wink to me, “and we will change from time to time to refresh ourselves, eh?”

And forthwith we each took up our burden without further ceremony, an example which was soon followed by all the young men in the other waggons.

Mathieu and his old girl laughed like fools. As for myself, when I felt the soft round arms of Alarde round my neck as she held the umbrella over our heads, I own it to this day, I would not have given up that journey across the Camargue in the rain and slush for a king’s ransom.

“Oh goodness, if my betrothed could see me now,” repeated Alarde at intervals; “my betrothed, who no longer loves me—my boy, my handsome boy!”

It was in vain that I tried to steal in with my little compliments and soft speeches, she neither heard nor saw me—but I could feel her breath on my neck and shoulder; I had only to turn my head a little and I could have kissed her, her hair brushed against mine; the close proximity of this youth and freshness bewitched me, and while she dreamt only of her lover, I, for my part, tried to imagine myself a second Paul carrying my Virginia.

Just at the happiest moment of my illusion, Mathieu, gasping beneath the weight of the fat mamma, cried out:

“Let us change for a bit! I can go no further, my dear fellow.”

At the trunk of a tamarisk, therefore, we halted and exchanged burdens, Mathieu taking the daughter, while I, alas, had the mother. And thus for over two miles, paddling in water up to our knees, we travelled, changing at intervals and making light of fatigue because of the reward we both got out of the romantic rôle of Paul!

At last the heavy rain began to abate, the sky to clear and the roads to become visible. We remounted the waggons, and about four o’clock in the afternoon, suddenly we saw rise out of the distant blue of sea and sky, with its Roman belfry, russet merlons and buttresses, the church of Les Saintes-Maries.

There was a general exclamation of joyful greeting to the great saints, for this far-away shrine, standing isolated on the edge of the great plain, is the Mecca of all the Gulf of Lyons. What impresses one most is the harmonious grandeur of the vast sweep of land and sea, arched over by the limitless dome of sky, which, more perfectly here than anywhere else, appears to embrace the entire terrestrial horizon.

Lamoureux turned to us saying: “We shall just arrive in time to perform the office of lowering the shrines; for, gentlemen, you must know that it is we of Beaucaire to whom is reserved the right before all others of turning the crane by which the relics of the saints are lowered.”

The sacred remains of Mary, mother of James the Less, Mary Salome, mother of James and John, and of Sarah, their servant, are kept in a small chapel high up just under the dome. From this elevated position, by means of an aperture which gives on to the church, the shrines are slowly lowered by a rope over the heads of the worshipping crowd.

So soon as we had unharnessed, which we did on the sandbanks covered with tamarisk and orach by which the village is surrounded, we made our way quickly to the church.

“Light them up well, the dear blessed saints,” cried a group of Montpellier women selling candles and tapers, medals and images at the church door.

The church was crammed with people of all kinds, from Languedoc, from Arles, the maimed and the halt, together with a crowd of gypsies, all one on the top of the other. The gypsies buy bigger candles than anybody else, but devote their attention exclusively to Saint Sarah, who, according to their belief, was one of their nation. It is here at Les Saintes-Maries that these wandering tribes hold their annual assemblies, and from time to time elect their queen.

It was difficult to get in at the church. A group of market women from Nîmes, muffled up in black and dragging after them their twill cushions whereon to sleep all night in the church, were quarrelling for the chairs. “I had this before you.”—“No, but I hired it,” &c. A priest was passing “The Sacred Arm” from one to the other to be kissed; to the sick people they were giving glasses of briny water drawn from the saints’ well in the middle of the nave, and which on that day they say becomes sweet. Some, by way of a remedy, were scraping the dust off an ancient marble block fixed in the wall, and reported to be the “saints’ pillow.” A smell of burning tapers, incense, heat and stuffiness suffocated one, while one’s ears were deafened by each group singing their own particular canticles at the pitch of their voices.

Then in the air, slowly the shrines begin to descend, and the crowd bursts into shouts and cries of “O great Saint Marys!” And as the cord unrolls, screams and contortions increase, arms are raised, faces upturned, every one awaits a miracle. Suddenly, from the end of the church, rushing across the nave, as though she had wings, a beautiful girl, her fair hair falling about her, flung herself towards the floating shrines, crying: “O great saints—in pity give me back the love of my betrothed.”

All rose to their feet. “It is Alarde!” exclaimed the people from Beaucaire, while the rest murmured awestruck, “It is Saint Mary Magdalen come to visit her sisters.” Every one wept with emotion.

The following day took place the procession on the sea-shore to the soft murmur and splash of the breaking waves. In the distance, on the high seas, two or three ships tacked about as though coming in, while all along the coast extended the long procession, ever seeming to lengthen out with the moving line of the waves.

It was just here, says the legend,[13] that the three Saint Marys in their skiff were cast ashore in Provence after the death of Our Lord. And looking out over the wide glistening sea, that lies in the midst of such visions and memories, illuminated by the radiant sunshine, it seemed to us in truth we were on the threshold of Paradise.

Our little friend Alarde, looking rather pale after the emotions of the previous day, was one of a group of maidens chosen to bear on their shoulders the “Boat of the Saints,” and many murmurs of sympathy followed her as she passed. This was the last we saw of her, for, so soon as the saints had reascended to their chapel, we took the omnibus for Aigues-Mortes, together with a crowd of people returning to Montpellier and Lundy, who beguiled the way by singing in chorus hymns to the Saints of the Sea.

STANZAS FROM “MIREILLE”[14]

CHAPTER XV

JEAN ROUSSIÈRE

That is how I engaged Jean Roussière, he who taught me the old folk-melody of “Magali”—a jovial fellow and made on the lines of a Hercules. The last year that I lived at the farm, with my blind father, in the long watches of our solitude Jean Roussière never failed to keep me interested and amused, good fellow that he was. At his work he was excellent and always enlivened his beasts by some cheering song.

Naturally artistic in all he did, even if it was heaping a rick of straw or a pile of manure, or stowing away a cargo, he knew how to give the harmonious line or, as they say, the graceful sweep. But he had the defects of his qualities and was rather too fond of taking life in an easy and leisurely fashion, even passing part of it in an afternoon nap.

A charming talker at all times, it was worth hearing him as he spoke of the days when he led the big teams of horses on the towing-path, tugging the barges up the Rhône to Valence and to Lyons.

“Just fancy!” he said, “at the age of twenty, I led the finest turn-out on the banks of the Rhône! A turn-out of twenty-four stallions, four abreast, dragging six barges! Ah, what fine mornings those were, when we set out on the banks of the big river and silently, slowly, this fleet moved up the stream!”

And Jean Roussière would enumerate all the places on the two banks; the inns, the hostesses, the streams, the sluices, the roads and the fords from Arles to the Revestidou, from the Coucourde to the Ermitage. But his greatest happiness and triumph was at the feast of Saint-Eloi.

“I will show your Maillanais,” he said, “if they have not already seen it, how we ride a little mule!”

Saint-Eloi is, in Provence, the feast of the agriculturists. All over Provence on that day the village priests bless the cattle, asses, mules and horses; and the people owning the beasts partake of the “blessed bread,” that excellent “blessed bread” flavoured with aniseed and yellow with eggs, which they call tortillarde. At Maillane it was our custom on that day to deck a chariot with green boughs and harness to it forty or fifty beasts, caparisoned as in the time of the tournaments, with beards, embroidered saddle-cloths, plumes, mirrors and crescents of brass. The whip was put up to auction, that is to say, the office of Prior was put up to public auction:

“Thirty francs for the whip!—a hundred francs!—two hundred francs! Once—twice—thrice!”

The presidency of the feast fell to the highest bidder. The chariot of green boughs led the procession, a cavalcade of joyful labourers, each one walking proudly near his own horse or mule, and cracking his whip. In the chariot, accompanied by the musicians playing the tambourine and flute, the Prior was seated. On the mules, fathers placed their little ones astride, the latter holding on happily to the trappings. The horses’ collars were all ornamented with a cake of the blessed bread, in the form of a crown, and a pennon in paper bearing a picture of Saint-Eloi; and carried on the shoulders of the Priors of the past years was an image of the saint, in full glory, like a golden bishop, the crozier in his hand.

Drawn by the fifty mules or donkeys round the village rolled the chariot, in a cloud of dust, with the farm labourers running like mad by the side of their beasts, all in their shirt sleeves, hats at the back of their heads, a belt round the waist, and low shoes.

That year Jean Roussière, mounting our mule Falette, astonished the spectators. Light as a cat, he jumped on the animal, then off again, remounted, now sitting on one side, now standing upright on the crupper, there in turn doing the goose step, the forked tree and the frog, on the mule’s back—in short, giving a sort of Arab horseman’s performance.

But where he shone with even greater lustre was at the supper of Saint-Eloi, for after the chariot procession the Priors give a feast. Every one having eaten and drunk their fill and said grace, Roussière rose and addressed the company.

“Comrades! Here you are, a crowd of good-for-nothings and rascals, who have kept the Saint-Eloi for the past thousand years, and yet I will wager none of you know the history of your great patron.”

The company confessed that all they had heard was that their saint had been a blacksmith.

“Yes, but I am going to tell you how he became a saint.” And while soaking a crisp tortillarde in his glass of Tavel wine, the worthy Roussière proceeded:

“Our Lord God the Father, one day in Paradise, wore a troubled air. The child Jesus inquired of him:

“‘What is the matter, my Father?’

“‘I have,’ replied God, ‘a case that greatly plagues me. Hold, look down there!’

“‘Where?’ asked Jesus.

“‘Down there, in the Limousin, to the right of my finger: thou seest, in that village, near the city, a smithy, a large fine smithy?’

“‘I see—I see.’

“‘Well, my son, there is a man that I should like to have saved: they call him Master Eloi. He is a reliable, good fellow, a faithful observer of my Commandments, charitable to the poor, kind-hearted to every one, of exemplary conduct, hammering away from morning to night without evil speaking or blasphemy. Yes, he seems to me worthy to become a great saint.’

“‘And what prevents it?’ asked Jesus.

“‘His pride, my son. Because he is a good worker, a worker of the first order, Eloi thinks that no one on earth is above him, and presumption is perdition.’

“‘My Lord Father,’ said Jesus, ‘if you will permit me to descend to the earth I will try and convert him.’

“‘Go, my dear son.’

“And the good Jesus descended. Dressed like an apprentice, his tool-bag on his back, the divine workman alighted right in the street where Eloi dwelt. Over the blacksmith’s door was the usual signboard, and on it this inscription:

“‘Eloi the blacksmith, master above all other masters, forges a shoe in two heatings.’

“The little apprentice stepped on to the threshold and taking off his hat:

“‘God give you good-day, master, and to the company,’ said he; ‘have you need of any help?’

“‘Not for the moment,’ answered Eloi.

“‘Farewell then, master: it will be for another time.’

“And the good Jesus continued his road. In the street he saw a group of men talking, and Jesus said in passing:

“‘I should not have thought that in such a smithy, where there must be, one would think, so much doing, they would refuse me work.’

“‘Wait a bit, my lad,’ said one of the neighbours. ‘What salutation did you make to Master Eloi!’

“‘I said, as is usual, “God give you good-day, master, and to the company!’

“‘Ah, but that is not what you should have said. You should have addressed him as, “Master above all other masters.” There, look at the board!’

“‘That is true,’ said Jesus. ‘I will try again.’ And with that he returned to the smithy.

“‘God give you good-day, master above all other masters. Have you no need of an apprentice?’

“‘Come in, come in,’ replied Eloi. ‘I have been thinking that we could give you work also. But listen to this once and for all: When you address me, you must say, “Master, above all other masters,” see you—this is not to boast, but men like me, who can forge a shoe in two heatings, there are not two in Limousin!’

“‘Oh,’ replied the apprentice, ‘in our country, we do it with one heating!’

“‘Only one heating! Go to, boy, be silent then—why the thing is not possible.’

“‘Very well, you shall see, master above all other masters!’

“Jesus took a piece of iron, threw it into the forge, blew, made up the fire, and when the iron was red—red, and incandescent—he took it out with his hand.

“‘Oh—poor simpleton!’ the head apprentice cried to him, ‘thou wilt scorch thy fingers!’

“‘Have no fear!’ answered Jesus. ‘Thanks to God, in our country we have no need of pincers.’ And the little workman seizes with his hand the iron heated to white heat, carries it to the anvil, and with his hammer, pif, paf, in the twinkle of an eye, stretches it, flattens it, rounds it and stamps it so well that one would have said it was cast.

“‘Oh, I, too,’ said Master Eloi, ‘I could do that if I wanted to.’

“He then takes a piece of iron, throws it in the forge, blows, makes up the fire, and when the iron is red hot, goes to take it as his apprentice had done and carry it to the anvil—but he burns his fingers badly! In vain he tried to hurry, to harden himself to endure the burn, he was forced to let go his hold and run for the pincers. In the meantime the shoe for the horse grew cold—and only a few sparks burnt out. Ah! poor Master Eloi, he might well hammer, and put himself in a sweat—to do it with one heating was impossible.

“‘But listen,’ said the apprentice, ‘I seem to hear the gallop of a horse.’

“Master Eloi at once stalked to the door and sees a cavalier, a splendid cavalier, drawing up at the smithy. Now this was Saint-Martin.

“‘I come a long way,’ he said, ‘my horse has lost a shoe, and I am in a great hurry to find a blacksmith.’

“Master Eloi bridled up.

“‘My lord,’ said he, ‘you could not have chanced better. You have come to the first blacksmith of Limousin—of Limousin and of France, who may well call himself “master of all the masters,” and who forges a shoe in two heats. Here lad, hold the horse’s hoof,’ he called.

“‘Hold the hoof!’ cried Jesus. ‘In our country we do not find that necessary.’

“‘Well, what next,’ cried the master blacksmith, ‘that is a little too much! And how can one shoe a horse, in your country, without holding the hoof?’

“‘But faith, nothing is easier, as you shall see.’

“And so saying, the young man seized a knife, went up to the horse, and crack! cut off the hoof. He carried it into the smithy, fastened it in the vice, carefully heated the hoof, fastened on the new shoe that he had just made; with the shoeing hammer he knocked in the nails, then loosening the vice, returned the foot to the horse, spat on it and fitted it, saying, as he made the sign of the Cross, ‘May God grant that the blood dries up,’ and there was the foot finished, shod and healed as no one had ever seen before and as no one will ever see again.

“The first apprentice opened his eyes wide as the palm of your hand, while Master Eloi’s assistants began to perspire.

“‘Ho,’ said Eloi at last, ‘my faith, but I will do it like that—do it just as well.’

“He sets himself to the task. Knife in hand he approaches the horse, and crack! he cuts off the foot, carries it into the smithy, fastens it into the vice, and shoes it at his ease, just like the young apprentice.

“But then came the hitch, he must put it back in place. He approaches the horse, spits on the shoe, applies it to the fetlock as best he can. Alas! the salve does not stick, the blood flows, and the foot falls! Then was the proud soul of Master Eloi illuminated: and he went back into the smithy there to prostrate himself at the feet of the young apprentice. But Jesus had disappeared, and also the horse and the cavalier. Tears gushed from the eyes of Master Eloi; he recognised, poor man, that there was a master above him, and above all. Throwing aside his apron he left the forge and went out into the world to teach the word of the Lord Jesus.”

Great applause followed the conclusion of this legend, applause both for Saint-Eloi and for Jean Roussière.

Before I leave the worthy Jean I must mention that it was he who sang to me the popular air to which I put the serenade of Magali, an air so sweet, so melodious, that many regretted not finding it in Gounod’s opera of Mireille. The only person in all the world that I ever heard sing that particular air was Jean Roussière, who was apparently the last to retain it. It was a strange coincidence that he should come, by chance as it were, and sing it to me, at the moment when I was looking for the Provençal note of my love-song, and thus enable me to save it just at the moment when, like so many other things, it was about to be relegated to oblivion.

The name of Magali, an abbreviation of Marguerite, I heard one day as I was returning home from Saint-Rémy. A young shepherdess was tending a flock of sheep along the Grande Roubine. “Oh! Magali, art not coming yet?” cried a boy to her as he passed by. The limpid name struck me as so pretty that at once I sang:

MAGALI.[15]